Executive Bob Shank once wrote:
Most everything I needed to know in life I learned in high school football. My team was a melting pot of ethnic flavors, coached by a similarly broad mix of committed men. My mentor was a 6'5", 260-pound persuader named Manny Penaflor.
As the giant on the defensive line (I weighed in at 172 pounds, minus gear), Manny would often start with me when demonstrating a point. One day as we lined up for scrimmage, Manny decided to capture a teaching opportunity. He had a peculiar way of seizing our attention--he grabbed your face mask and pulled you up real close, so you wouldn't miss a single word.
On this particular day, he grabbed my face mask and yelled in his distinctive accent, "Chank, you're a defensive tackle, not the whole team. I don't want you playing the whole field. Here's your job."
He let me go and used his foot to scratch a ten-foot square around my spot on the line. "Chank, you see this square?" I couldn't miss it. "This square is yours. Anybody from the other team who comes into this square, it's your job to put them on their butt. You got that?"
When he was convinced I understood my assignment, he moved to the middle guard, Ernie Norton, and went through the same theatrics. Property rights were assigned in 100-square-foot increments to five linemen and two linebckers. None of us could ever say we didn't know what was expected of us. We knew our personal responsibilities.
I think of Manny often when I tense up over what needs to be done on a global scale. I have a tendency to become frustrated, then fatalistic, because I can't get my arms around all there is to do. It's at those moments that I need to remember I'm not assigned the whole planet. I've only been entrusted with a particular slice of it. This is the portion of the world for which God will one day hold me accountable.
- Bob Shank, Total Life Management (Multnomah Press, 1990)
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